Standing in the Doorway
by Thesseli
Summary: Ever wonder why a redpill chooses to work for the Machines? A Matrix/MxO fanfic, set just after the truce went into effect.
1. Chapter 1: The Collective

Part 1: The Collective

"Are you coming, Lyr?" came the question over the cell phone's speaker. There was a more than a hint of concern in the operator's voice.

"Just give me a couple minutes," she replied evenly. "I'm at the park -- the one I passed through earlier."

"Oh," he said. "Well, OK, just try to keep it short. We have to get back to Zion."

"Ten minutes," she promised, trying to hide her annoyance. //You can at least spare me ten minutes of normality, after I spent all morning running from exile gangs and the Merovingian's henchmen for you.// "I'll be at the hardline after that."

"All right. But no more than ten minutes."

"No more," she repeated, then snapped the phone shut, shoving it into her jacket pocket afterwards. She was determined to enjoy her brief moment of freedom -- she welcomed any chance to return to familiar surroundings, to forget the squalor of existence underground, if only for a little while.

She'd only taken the red pill a month ago, but she found herself wondering yet again if she'd made the right choice.

//Thanks a lot, Morpheus. Thanks a whole hell of a lot.//

Before she was recruited, she was fresh out of college with a degree in geology and an eye on graduate school. She'd wanted to get more work in before applying, but she'd never thought she would end up living beneath the surface of the earth she'd been studying. //Ironic, isn't it?// she thought morosely. Once in the real world, she'd seemed like a natural for work in the huge caverns that held the human's underground city. However, her previously-unsuspected talents for both firearms and martial arts had made her a prime candidate for operative training…and since then, she'd been running missions for Zion, using every opportunity she got to return to the Matrix.

It was more real, and more pleasant, than anything she'd seen in the ruined world outside.

She sighed, leaning against the low stone wall that surrounded the greenery. She was close enough to smell the grass and the flowers, and she didn't care that they didn't exist in the physical world.

"Physical form has nothing to do with whether something's real or not," said a calm voice from beside her. "Thoughts aren't material things; neither are memories, or emotions. And no-one says they're not real."

Illyria blinked. She hadn't realized at first that she'd spoken out loud. "I beg your pardon?" she said, turning towards the source of the voice…and raising an eyebrow when she located it.

From out of nowhere, it seemed, an agent had appeared. "Hello, Ms. Dodson."

"Hello," she replied, almost automatically. She'd seen system agents before, of course, usually near hardlines or during missions. They usually showed up as disinterested observers or to offer unnecessary advice about the dangers of working in the Matrix. Most people had trouble telling them apart, but she didn't; she'd seen this one during a mission to seek out a potential redpill.

"Your performance against the exiles this morning was impressive," said the AI. "As usual. You fight quite well, for a human."

She regarded him for a moment before speaking again. "Thank you." She didn't really know what to say. None of the agents had ever complimented her before, not even when she'd taken out three simulacra in front of one. This one, in fact.

"We've been watching you, you know," he continued casually.

That was curious. "Really? Why?" It couldn't be because she'd done something wrong or gone somewhere restricted…she hadn't been shot and sent back to the loading area.

The agent didn't answer. Instead, he gazed out over the lush vegetation, an island of nature in the middle of the city. "The Merovingian has been re-creating some of the worst of bluepill society among the redpills, don't you think?"

Illyria shrugged. Inwardly, though, she agreed with him. The Merovingian appealed to certain people's greed and lust for power -- the lowest common denominator. Redpills could be very powerful when they were back in the Matrix, and it was no longer just a rumor that some of Zion's recruits had begun working for him. In her opinion, the rush to free as many people from the Matrix as possible had led to a dramatic drop in Zion's standards. Anyone with a hint of Awakening was targeted, no matter their background or circumstances. The latest group of new redpills had included an embezzler and a car thief. But that didn't seem to matter, to the people in charge.

"But it's not just the Frenchman, is it," mused the agent, still gazing out over the park. "Even without his influence, most of the negative aspects of human nature would still be present among your people." He turned then, finally looking back at her. "Many of them still hate us, do they not?"

Illyria looked away, strangely uncomfortable at acknowledging what she knew to be true. But she had never enjoyed lying. "Yes, they do," she admitted.

"Do you?" he asked.

"Do I?" she repeated. She certainly hadn't expected a question like that from him.

He nodded once. "Do you hate us?"

"No," she replied, again being truthful.

For a program, he seemed almost pleased with her answer, and he paused for a moment before speaking again. "As I said, we've been watching you. And we know that you haven't been…happy…with your current situation."

She didn't bother to deny it. "How did you know that?" she asked. She'd always thought she'd done a good job of hiding what she was feeling from her neighbors and colleagues -- from the ones who hated the Machines with a passion to those who'd turned Neo into the icon of their new religion. Illyria had the reputation of being quiet, good-natured, easygoing…mainly because she'd never let anyone else know just what was going on inside of her head. She didn't want to be executed, or banished above ground to die slowly of starvation or radiation poisoning.

"There are others who feel as you do," the agent said. "And they watch for others like themselves. They offer a choice, different than the one you were given before by Morpheus, because this is an *informed* choice. A choice that perhaps some humans don't want anyone to know about."

Illyria frowned. "So why didn't any of them come to me in the first place, if they knew how I felt?"

"Because you would have suspected them of secretly working for the Zion council, trying to root out possible traitors," he replied. "A system agent, obviously, would have no such hidden motives, so I was asked to contact you. If you seek these people out, you'll discover there are many who believe as you do." He smiled, very slightly, but it was enough to convey his intent. "I can only show you the door," he said, handing her a piece of paper. "It's up to you to walk through it. We'll be waiting for you on the other side."

Illyria looked down at the paper; on it was a name and an address in the residential quarters of Zion. When she looked up again, the agent was gone. In his place was a rather perplexed young man, holding a newspaper and a cup of coffee.

"Excuse me," he said, looking around in confusion. "Has the number 42 bus come by yet?"

"No," she replied, glancing down at the paper again and then back at him. "It's down at the end of the block, you just made it."

"Thank you," he said, still a little confused, and turned away from the park towards the approaching vehicle.

Illyria read the message again, committing everything in it to memory before hurrying back to the hardline. Once she'd returned to Zion, she'd have to look these people up.

//The Collective,// she mused. //Sounds good to me.//


	2. Chapter 2: Reinsertion

Part 2: Reinsertion

Illyria watched the man out of the corner of her eye, wanting to give him a little privacy as he tidied up the last of his affairs.

He'd had enough. And now, he was going home…back to the Matrix, to his family and friends and what was left of his old life. It was possible to do that now, thanks to the Machines.

The Zionites didn't approve, of course. Once a redpill, always a redpill. Once a Zion operative, always an operative. Or so they used to think. She only wished she could have been there to see their faces, when they'd first realized the Machines had started their own recruiting efforts among the humans Zion had gone through such pains to 'free'. //But those people had never really been offered a choice about who to support after they got out. Not an informed choice, not one where they were given all the facts and were allowed to decide for themselves who they wanted to ally with.//

//God help those first ones who allied themselves with the Machines.//

She remembered hearing that soon after she'd come to Zion, spoken disparagingly about the redpills who'd chosen this very different path, but she realized now that most Zionites who felt this way were either afraid or ignorant -- they'd been fed a steady stream of propaganda for so long that most of them didn't even know that the humans had struck first in the original Man-Machine war. She was just glad that her guild's ships didn't have to dock in Zion. The Machines really did reward their operatives' service, and a safe place to stay was very welcome. Illyria knew there were other bases the Machines had helped build (or rebuild), including those of other Machinist groups…groups that had been formed in the beginning, in secret, with no knowledge of each other until after the political climate had improved.

Illyria took another quick look at the man, nearly ready to go. Even he had asked her, when she'd come to his quarters to escort him to the ship, why any human would work for the Machines. Those who continued to support Zion could understand, in a way, why other redpills might want to work for the Merovingian. He offered them luxury, and power – and while the Zionites might not agree with it, they could see how that sort of thing might be tempting. What most of them couldn't grasp was why one of their own species would support the Machines. This man she was helping didn't understand, any more than the Zion Council or Lock or Morpheus did.

//Morpheus was wrong,// she mused, remembering one of his diatribes against Machinists. //It's not about power.// Not about us wanting power, or control, or an easy life. Instead, it was about seeing sentient programs and Machines as equals to humans. As people. People who'd been on a different side during a war, perhaps, but still people.

//It's not about power. It's about what's right.//

"I'm ready," he finally announced, with a broad smile.

Illyria smiled back at him graciously. "Come on then," she said. "Let's get you home."


	3. Chapter 3: The End of the Beginning

Part 3: [The End]

"No way."

"Yes, *way*," the voice over the cell phone repeated petulantly, as if he'd already anticipated what the operative's reaction would be. "He says he wants to meet with you, today."

"Really?"

"Really."

"OK…that's kind of weird," replied Illyria, unable to hide her surprise. When she'd requested a new assignment this morning, she assumed she'd get something routine, something along the lines of the other missions she'd been given. She hadn't expected anything like this. Low-level operatives rarely got to do anything too interesting, and she was far from being her ship's ranking officer. She couldn't even hyperjump yet. "Why does he want to see me?" she asked curiously.

"Who knows why a Machine wants to do anything?" her operator sighed. "All I was told was that your next assignment is to meet with Agent Gray in their building in Tabor Park."

Illyria glanced at her map, watching as the waypoint appeared. She was near Tabor now, so the meeting place wasn't far away -- and she *was* experienced enough that the district's roaming gangs of exiles wouldn't be bothering her, which was always a plus. "Did he say anything else?" she asked.

"Oh yeah, Lyr, there was one more thing, something very important that he said I needed to tell you."

She perked up immediately. "What's that?"

The operator's voice took on an ominous tone. "Don't be late."

Illyria rolled her eyes, hidden behind her shades. "I'd better get going, then." She clicked off her cell phone, wondering why in the world Gray wanted to see her. She knew that some of the others in her organization had been called to meet with their Controller, but all of them had been working for the Machines a lot longer than she had. This was a first time for her, and she was just about to set out for the mission area when something occurred to her…she remembered how Zion's new operatives were cautioned to 'look presentable' when they were sent to meet with Niobe, and she wondered if the same rules applied here. //Do the Machines care how we dress?// she thought.

She looked down at herself. She was wearing one of her typical in-Matrix outfits: high boots, a short skirt, and a shirt that left little to the imagination.

//Better safe than sorry,// she told herself. //Don't want to look sloppy in front of the boss, even if all this *is* buffed.// She pulled a jacket from her inventory and slipped it on. //I wonder what this is all about?//

Illyria, however, had very little time to speculate about her upcoming meeting. The Machine building turned out to be fairly close by; so before she knew it she was inside, and the elevator doors were opening to let her out on a floor that was usually off-limits to humans.

She poked her head out and looked around. "Hello?" she called.

No answer. The hallway was eerily silent, with a series of doors evenly-spaced on both sides. Checking her map again, she saw the waypoint now indicated the nearest one to her right.

//All right then,// she thought, stepping out of the elevator and up to the door. She turned the handle, and then walked through it into a swarm of agents.

//OK, not exactly a swarm,// she corrected herself, watching them part to admit her, each moving (presumably) towards his own destination. This wasn't mindless activity for activity's sake. All of them appeared to be entirely focused on what they were doing, where they were going, without even a glance at the sole human in the room.

That is, apart from the agent headed straight for her.

Illyria smiled, recognizing the approaching agent as the one she'd met in the park recently, before she'd even guessed the Machines were recruiting human operatives. He was the one who'd given her information on how to contact The Collective. She was grateful for that.

"Hello, Agent Miller," she said brightly. "It's nice to see you again."

"Hello, Ms. Dodson," he replied. He'd obviously been waiting for her. "I'm here to escort you to your meeting. Please come with me."

Illyria nodded, realizing that his superiors had probably sent him because of their previous encounter. They seemed to be trying to make their human operatives feel more at ease -- not the easiest task, considering all that had gone on before the truce. But at least they were making an effort, unlike many of those on the other side.

"Do you know what this meeting is about?" she asked, as the two began walking through the maze of corridors. For an agent, Miller was chatty...maybe he had some inside information.

"I'm not at liberty to divulge that at this time," Miller replied. Then, almost as an afterthought, "We're very pleased with your progress," he added.

Illyria glanced up at him. The Machines weren't big on compliments, and hearing more than one from a single agent was an even bigger surprise than this meeting with Gray. "You are?"

Miller nodded. "We were aware of your potential even as a bluepill," he said. He sounded almost proud. "*We* knew, even before you were approached by Zion."

She smiled again. "You guys sure keep a close eye on things."

"We have to," he said. "Are you enjoying your work with us?"

"Yes, I am," she replied.

"You're sure?" The agent paused, stopping them both in the center of one of the nearly-identical rooms they'd been passing through. "You wouldn't rather go back?"

"To Zion?" she replied distastefully. "No thank you."

"I didn't mean back to Zion," said Miller. "I meant back. To where you were before you were offered the choice of red or blue." He leaned in a little closer. "You know now that redpills can be reinserted into the Matrix," he said softly. "You've even assisted some of them, both here and in the real world. You know it's possible."

She was stunned that he'd even brought this up. "Why are you—"

"We know you weren't happy in Zion. We hope you're happier with us, and we don't want to lose you, but we also don't want to keep you here against your will. Forced loyalty is no loyalty. So we offer you a choice -- an informed choice -- as to what you will do next." He gazed down at her steadily, and when he spoke again his voice was both clearer and gentler than any agent's she'd ever heard. "Do you want to go home, Kate?"

Illyria took a step back and looked away, staring at a patch of nothing on the wall. She had to admit that she'd thought about it…and not just a few times. But did she really want to go home? Could she willingly go back to her old life, knowing what was going on in the world?

Knowing how tenuous the truce really was?

She'd spoken with others about this, including Zionites, and had gotten mostly nowhere. She might as well have been beating her head against a brick wall -- it was frustrating and infuriating and there were times that she'd wanted to put a bullet right between their eyes, just so she wouldn't have to hear their bullshit until they'd made it back out of the loading area and through a hardline. But the emergency jackout protocol only provided temporary relief from those who refused to see what was really going on.

The arrogance. The way some of them spoke. It was like they really thought *they'd* somehow stopped the sentinels from destroying the city, that they'd fought them off. Didn't they realize that Zion's counterattack, such as it was, had absolutely nothing to do with why their city hadn't been reduced to rubble? Didn't they know they never could have stopped the Machines? And didn't they realize the Machines still knew very well where Zion was?

Did they really think the city wouldn't be destroyed if the truce failed?

She might not have supported their government's policies, but she had nothing against the ordinary citizens of Zion. Illyria didn't want to see over two hundred thousand people die just because a handful of them were complete jackasses.

//Like the humans who denied the early AI's the rights that any sentient beings -- that any *people* -- should have had. Like the humans who enslaved an entire race of thinking beings, just because those beings were different than them.// She frowned. //It was all the same, wherever you looked at it, just the particulars have changed…whether it's color, gender, race, or religion. Now it's species, but it's really just the same hate and fear as it's always been. Someone always has to be the 'other', the low man on the totem pole, the one who does most of the work and gets no credit. The group who the people in charge can blame all of society's problems on, instead of looking at the problems inherent to that society. The ones it's OK to treat like they're subhuman, like they're not really people…because by your definition, they're not.//

//It has to stop. It *needs* to stop.//

//Maybe, if enough of us feel this way, it *can* stop.//

Miller was still looking at her, waiting for her answer.

//They've already shown me the door, now all I have to do is step through -- *choose* to step through. Because the way the world is, and how we view it and the people in it, no matter what kind of people they are…it all depends on choice.//

Illyria looked back at Agent Miller. "No," she said confidently. Saying it out loud, she felt a little surprised, but it definitely felt right. "No, I don't want to go back. Not now. Who knows, maybe someday, if things get better, but right now…" Her voice trailed off, and then she laughed. "I'm sorry, I'm probably not making much sense right now."

"You're making perfect sense."

"You understood what I meant by all that?" she asked skeptically. The Machines were smart, but not that smart.

"Not exactly," he replied, and then gestured towards the ceiling panel directly above them.

Illyria looked up, raising an eyebrow at what she saw. She hadn't noticed the small device between the lighting fixtures when they'd entered the room; she supposed it had been concealed until now. "What's that?"

"An RSI scanner."

"Oh, a lie detector," she said.

"It's much more sophisticated than a lie detector, Ms. Dodson."

"A mind probe?"

Miller considered this. "That would be an accurate description. I hope this doesn't disturb you…we do need to maintain rather high security in this area, we can't risk anyone without the proper clearance getting in when Agent Gray is here."

Illyria wondered what he meant by that, but decided (for once) not to indulge her curiosity. "Speaking of Agent Gray," she began, "am I ever going to see him? My operator warned me not to be late, and I don't want to keep him waiting."

"You're right on time," Miller assured her. "And in reference to your earlier question, this meeting is to officially welcome you to our ranks. I believe other Machinists refer to it as a rite of passage that leads to higher status…as well as to more interesting assignments," he said. "We're pleased that you've chosen to stay with us, Ms. Dodson. You, and others like you, will be helping to shape the future of the world we all share." He gave her another very slight smile, as he had at the end of their first meeting. "Agent Gray is waiting for you. You'd best be on your way -- you wouldn't want to be late, now would you?"

Was he making a joke? "Good thinking," she declared, smiling back at him. "So where is he?"

Miller indicated the door on the far wall. "Just go through the door, Ms. Dodson. Just go through."

[The Beginning]


End file.
